Frost and Ruins
by Pashleyy
Summary: What is scarier than the dark? Than nightmares? The one thing no one can escape from―not even the Guardians. And Death has finally come to collect on Jack Frost.
1. Prologue

_"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."_  
- Galileo

Frost and Ruins  
**Prologue**

In the deep darkness, where neither light nor warmth could touch, a light beckoned. It shifted the currents, caressing a gaunt carcass. A glow worm, startled, shrunk down into a rock to hide. The light whispered to it, spread a bit of life across the alabaster bones until they started to move and shift, rising, crustacean and rust crackling off with the sound of ice. It stretched up toward the surface, blood red sinew and pale skin laced across its bones, knitting them together, as the body rushed faster and faster to the surface.

Then it burst through the tide, gasping for breath, and came washing onto a cold block of antarctic ice. The creature splayed its fingers, trembling, and sucked in another lungful of breath, relishing in the painful cold.

Black boots stepped up, and the creature rose its eyes to meet the one who summoned him. It was a man in a purple bowtie and bowler hat, his suit pristinely black, his boots shining. A broach with the insignia of a skull pinned a snow-white lily to his pocket.

"My Liege," the man greeted, bowing so low the silvery braid over his left shoulder touched the ground, "we are delighted you have returned. _He_ has reappeared, after three-hundred years."

The creature tilted his head, his blue lips pursed, and rose a bony hand to his servant's cheek. At the creature's touch, the man's eyes sprung wide as his cheeks grew gaunt and slithers of black veins raced across his face. With a strangled gasp, fell to the ice, a heap of burnt limbs, crackling softly like a campfire.

"Thank you for your contribution," the creature said, and stepped over the corpse.


	2. Chapter 1

Wow... I didn't think I'd get such a response! Thank you, everyone! And, um, here's chapter one!

**Chapter One  
**_Believers_

The Bennett household finally started to thaw out mid-May. Jack sat on the edge of the rooftop, swinging his legs back and forth, watching the kids play in the yard below. Only a smattering of snow remained, not enough to make a decent snowman. If he wasn't a Guardian now, he would've summed up another blizzard―just a _small_ one―to douse the town one last time before summer ate away the cold.

But, as North so dramatically put it, "With great power comes great responsibility, Jack."

Right. Like he hadn't heard _that_ line before.

Down below, Jamie fashioned a puny snowball, but he didn't throw it. He put it in a cooler beside him and closed the lid.

His friend, Monty, adjusted his glasses. "That is highly improbable. They'll melt together."

"I'll stick them in the freezer," Jamie replied.

Cupcake rose an eyebrow. "Why keep them? It snows every year."

"You can't get any good snowballs anymore anyway, they're all… dirty." Caleb agreed, holding up a brown-looking ball of ice and mud.

Above them, Jack cocked his head. He held his hand out and blew his breath into it. The air spun into frost, into white glitter, swirling together until it made a perfect snowball. "Not all of them," he murmured, and dropped the snowball down into Jamie's hand.

The kid grinned, and shot his eyes upward, but he didn't see anything. Jack Frost had been true to his word, and Jamie hadn't seen him since that night Easter Sunday, when they beat Pitch Black, but that didn't mean he wasn't there. They all knew that.

The other kids grinned, sharing a secret look.

Jamie put the last snowball into his cooler. "I can't wait to tell Jill about this."

On the roof, Jack stood and dusted himself off. "You're welcome, as always―_Ow_!" Baby Tooth poked him in the shoulder, buzzing urgently in his ear. "I know, I know, summer's coming. Give me a few more…"

A car turned onto the street, a blue Buick glued together with ducktape and love. It puttered down the street, belching black smoke out of its tailpipe. He'd never seen the car before, and he knew the town well―every face, every car, every pet. At the ungodly sound of the car, Jamie perked and tore through the backyard, hurtling over the gate. The car came to a stop in front of the Bennett's house.

Baby Tooth buzzed louder, swirling around Jack's head. He swatted her away, and jumped onto the chimney to get a better view.

The car door opened, and Jamie flung himself at the driver. "Sis! I have _so_ much to tell you. Santa came and there was this nightmare guy, right? And we _beat_ him with Jack Frost's help and―"

"That's great, Jay-bird," the young woman laughed, scrubbing Jamie's head, "and I'd love to hear about it, but let me unpack first?"

"Oh yeah! We'll help!" Jamie signaled for his friends to come help. They started unloaded the car of cardboard boxes and plastic tubs. And books. Lots, and lots of books.

The young woman, Jill, lifted her eyes to the top of the chimney where Jack stood, but he knew her expression well. She couldn't see him―not that he expected her to. He was relieved, actually. It was strange, alienating, to have children see him, and only the ones who believed at that. And the only children who believed in him were unloading boxes from a beat-up car.

Baby Tooth butted him again, twittering angrily, and pulled at a lock of his hair.

"Ow! All right! All right! I'm going! Jeez. You'd think North was a slave-driver." Knocking his staff against the chimney in aggravation, he shot skyward and caught the northern wind on a one-way ticket to the North Pole.

* * *

North paced nervously across his study, twisting his white mustache. A trio of elves watched him from the desk, snacking on a plate of cookies he'd forgotten about. Where _was_ Jack? He was supposed to be here an hour ago. Four weeks into being a Guardian, and he was already failing miserably at his new job.

A gust of wind rattled the window panes, and blew them open. Jack flew inside, carrying with him a burst of ice and snow. North shivered.

"Close the window! What were you, raised in a barn?"

"Burgess, actually, three hundred years ago," replied Jack Frost, sitting down on the edge of North's study. He stole a cookie from one of the elves and tried to bite into it, but the cookie laced with ice and became as hard as a brick. He winced, and pulled it away, holding his mouth in pain. The elves pointed and laughed. Annoyed, he swiped his staff, and froze them in their funny faces.

North, oblivious, pulled at his beard. "Bunnymund told me you failed to deliver snow in Tokyo today."

"Tell the Kangaroo to mind his own business. I'll get there."

"You're a Guardian now―"

"That no one but six kids in Burgess can see, if I remember," replied Jack, inspecting a mug of eggnog. He picked it up by the stem and sloshed the eggnog around.

North threw his hands into the air. "That is why you _must_ spread yourself! Go where children _need_ you…"

Jack put the mug to his lips and tilted the cup back, but nothing came out. He shook it once, before looking inside. The eggnog sparkled, frozen. This time, North caught him, and raised an eyebrow. Jack rolled his eyes and slammed the mug back down. "Listen, I understand―"

"And not," North interrupted, wagging his finger, "where you _want_ to be."

To that, Jack froze, and lowered his gaze.

The old wiseman put his finger under Jack's chin and lifted his head so their eyes met, ice blue to wonder blue, Guardian to Guardian. "To be a Guardian, you must put others before yourself, Jack Frost."

"Yeah." He pushed North's hand away. "I get that." He floated up and out of the open window again in a gust of snow, slamming shut the stained glass panes after him.

The elves looked from the window to North, and back to the window. One of them held the frozen cookie, trying to gnaw on it. They seemed disappointed, and a little sad. "Oh, he'll come around," North told them hopefully, but they didn't seem convinced, and neither did he, to be completely honest. "Ah! I know. I'll have Bunnymund talk to him. He had problems too when he first became a Guardian, eh? Perfect idea. Jack Frost will come around. You'll see."

* * *

Night had fallen on Burgess by the time Jack returned, but the light in Jamie's room was still on. Jack floated down outside the window, peering inside the window panes, and grinned. He couldn't help himself. The kid reminded him of his sister, someone he wanted to miss and wanted to forget, all at the same time.

"And then the Sandman came and there was all this golden sand dinosaurs and stingrays flying around! Pitch was _toast_!" Jamie's smile stretched from ear to ear as he stood on his bed, a plastic dinosaur in one hand, and a bunny in the other. The same young woman from earlier, her blonde hair braided down her shoulder, watched in amusement as her brother flopped back down onto the bed with a sigh. "It was… _amazing_. Cupcake's unicorn was this black horse thing that smelled _fear_ and we drove them all away! And then, on the pond, we were surrounded by the horses but none of us were scared! It was Pitch who was scared! And they took him away! It was great, sis. It was _ah-may-zing_. And they're real, like you said, they're all really real!"

"I hate I missed that!" she laughed. "NYU wasn't nearly so interesting."

"I wish you were here too. You'd like Jack. He makes the best snowballs."

"Maybe I'll be able to come home for Spring Break next year and meet him," she replied, rising from the computer chair. "But right now, it's way past your bedtime and I don't wanna piss off Mom on my first day back. We have the whole summer to tell me about all your awesome adventures. Sound good?" She folded the covers over him and tucked him in tight, kissing his forehead. "I've missed you, Jay-bird."

"I missed you too, sis."

_"I've missed you, Jack_." Jack jerked around, but there was nothing behind him. Only power lines and rooftops. Hesitantly, he turned back to a dark room, and pressed a finger against the pane. It iced over, like everything else he touched.

North was right, he should move on. Tokyo was nice this time of year. He could freeze some cherry trees, ice some bike trails, slick some sidewalks, maybe call in a snow day or two in Okinawa. Yeah, not a bad idea at all. Pulling his hood over his head, he began to summon the western winds when he heard his name again.

But this time, it was below him. On the back porch. He looked down. His breath hitched.

It was the blonde-haired young woman. Jill. And she was looking right at him… as if... as if she could _see_ him. But that was because she could, her eyes wide, her mouth open, in wonderment like a kid on Christmas Day.

"North," he murmured, not sure whether to confront her or fly away, "make that seven people."


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two  
**_Ice Cold_

A light went on in the globe that neither North nor Bunnymund nor Tooth or Sandman noticed. It blinked, curiously, into existence, and then suddenly vanished like it had just been a passing thought, and to Jill it was.

She stared up at the full moon, the last of the year's coldness making her shiver. She hugged her duster around herself, looking at Jupiter shining beside the moon. The night was clear and dark and bright. A perfect night for skating.

Grabbing her skates from just inside the door, she snuck out through the backyard and followed along the street toward the pond, humming, breathing in the crisp air. She couldn't wait until summer, though. Even though she liked winter, she had a love affair with summer. The lightning bugs, the watermelon, the sunshine. There was nothing quite like it, just like there was nothing like the thrill of ice skating in the dark and cold, where no one saw you and no one dared care. Any warmer, and the ice would crack under her weight. Tonight really was the perfect night.

Probably the last perfect winter night.

"Jack Frost, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny…" she murmured as she came up to the pond. It was just far enough from town that it earned her privacy, but close enough to still see the bright lights of warm windows. She sat down on a dry log and laced up her ice skates. "Oh Jaybird, what else will you think up? The Fairy Godmother? La Luna?" She laughed at the last one, and said to the moon, "What sex are you, anyway? La Luna? Man in the Moon?"

"Man in the Moon," Jack replied, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that she couldn't hear him. He touched down on the edge of a rock, indian-style. "Though I doubt he'll answer you."

"Man, I knew it."

Jack's eyebrows quirked up. "He didn't speak to you. He couldn't have. You're just talking to yourself."

As if to agree with him, she said to herself, "All right Jill, let's get it on." She pushed herself out onto the frozen pond. She pointed her feet together to stop, and breathed in the pure, crisp air. "Let's see if you remember this. Left, right, circle―" She flailed her arms, but caught herself, spinning to a stop. "Okay, no circles."

Jack cocked his head. A girl who talked to herself. _What a catch._ He tossed his staff from hand to hand, watching her skate across the same pond that had claimed him three hundred years ago. If she skated any further across the pond he knew she'd hit a weak spot. The same one his sister hit. The same one that killed _him_.

"Hey, uh, you might want to come back this way. Maybe a little."

But of course she couldn't hear him. He held his staff tightly, and jumped into the air to follow her across the pond as she skated in circles, again and again, closer and closer to the weakened part of the pond.

"Don't be stupid, please," he begged her. "Go home, will you?"

The young woman hummed, doing a slow turn to her own music. But over her voice there was a certain trill. She couldn't hear it, but he definitely could. He'd heard it before―and in a rush of fear he dropped onto the pond. He remembered the way the ice broke, the way he sank like a rock through the water, the biting cold, the suffocation. He remembered the way his lungs filled with water, the way he tried and tried to fight his way to the top but never could. He remembered the blue of the water, the darkness below the ice, the darkness, and the pull that he could only describe as this intense want to go _home_. Not home int he physical sense, but spiritual, a wholeness sort of home that, when the Man in the Moon spoke, dropped away like water off a duck's wings…

… And then he remembered the Man in the Moon's words.

_"You are Jack Frost. You will not die tonight."_

And, suddenly, he was very, very scared for her.

"Hey, Jamie's sister!" He tried to grab for her, but his hand went through her forearm. He cursed and tried again. If he didn't stop her, Jamie would grow up like Jack's sister did, without an older sibling. And Jack didn't want the boy to grow up like that. The pond had already claimed one life.

But it was against his being, his Jack Frost-ness, to bring cold to the beginning of summer. It was like Bunnymund trying to make a rainbow for St. Patrick's Day. Like North having Christmas in July. It just didn't happen. It was against who they were.

The trill grew louder.

The shadows grew longer.

The moon grew brighter.

Jill twisted, the tip of her ice skate raked against the ice, and suddenly she was falling backwards into the thin ice. Jack didn't think. He swirled his staff up, summoning a rush of cold. Forbidden cold, but cold nonetheless. It clenched his insides to disobey his purpose, it tore at his veins and rattled his bones. Frost shocked the ground, spreading out like foliage across the thinned ice, solidifying it in a sudden rush of bitter frost.

The human girl landed hard on her butt and slid, legs splayed, across the the ice, coming to a sudden stop. The shadows hissed, the trill screeched.

Jack dropped to his knees, gasping. He clenched his teeth in pain. It's fine. He was all right. Grabbing his staff to help him up, he stood on shaky legs, and looked out over the pond to the young woman.

"Shit _ow_," she groaned, rubbing her butt, before―with a jolt―she realized exactly _where_ she was. "Oh my god. Oh my god." Trembling, she turned over onto her knees, staring down through the ice. It was hard, thick, cold… "Frosted over," she murmured, and stood on her skates again, a distant look in her eyes. "I… better get home."

Jack stood still, watching her skate across the pond, take off her boots, and go home. The trilling was soft now, like a purr. From the shadows, a lanky man in black stepped out onto the ice.

"Ah, Jack. It's a _pleasure_." His words were like a thousand sighs in unison.

The young man stood, holding his staff in front of him. "Yeah? And who're you?"

"That's not important," he waved his hand dismissively. "What is important is your little trick just now. That was very naughty of you, Jack."

"You with Pitch? If you are I'm warning you…"

The man held up a white-gloved hand. "Now Jack, please try not to assume. You were always terrible at that."

"You talk like you know me."

"Why, I do," the man replied simply. His hair was the color of dull seaweed, pulled over his shoulder in an intricate braid, a bone clasping the end. He took a step closer, folding his hands into his pockets. "I know all of my clients. Including the one you just saved. Now what are we to do, Jack? What are we to do..."

Jack's eyebrows furrowed. "Who _are_ you?"

The man cocked his head, his thin lips pulling back into a straight, white, sinister smile that split his face in half. Stitches covered his lips, purple rungs hung under his eyes. He was not a looker, to be sure, but he was definitely predatory in the way he held his shoulders, the way he walked, prowling across the ice. His suit was an immaculate black, his tie bloody red, shoes shined to perfection. "Ah," he laughed, dry and bitter, "now isn't that the question. After three hundred years, I've finally come for you… Jack Frost."

* * *

Toothiana almost dropped the tooth she was holding when the wrongness swept over her in a wave of nausea. She gasped, handing the tooth to one of her babies. "Oh no," she whispered, her voice trembling. She whirled up through the towers of mosaics where tubes of teeth were held to a certain container in the furthest tower. A baby popped it out and handed it to her, the picture of a young girl with red pigtails and a gape-toothed smile. The picture began to fade.

"Jill," she murmured, sadness inking her voice.

The babies around her twittered sadly.

"Well, it happens to all of them," she consoled the babies. "Sink it in the pool. We have work to do."

They took the tube from her hands, and began away with it when the little girl's picture flared to life again. Toothiana grappled for it again almost instantly, inspecting the teeth inside, all of the young woman's beautiful baby teeth, all of the good memories. Something was wrong. This had happened before. "Let me… let me take care of this one?"

The babies twittered curiously.

"Hold down the fort. I need to pay a visit to North. Don't forget, it's bedtime in Hong Kong!" She swirled up through the towers and disappeared into the bright blue sky, northward.


	4. Chapter 3

A/N: Okay I normally don't write author's notes but... gee whiz, guys! Thank you for all the support! I didn't realize that so many people would _like this_. You all are the best! Also, bumped the rating up to T because of a bad word North says in, erm, Russian. Enjoy!~

* * *

**Chapter 3  
**_Ashes_

"North!" Toothiana cried, bursting through the main entrance into North's Castle. A gaggle of Yetis ducked in unison as she zoomed overhead. "Sorry!" she called back to their shaking fists, and made a round around the two-story golden globe almost admiringly, before finally touching down outside North's study. "North! The strangest thing happened to one of the teeth in…"

As she walked into his study, she grew quiet. Everything, the trains, the air planes, the hot air balloons that seemed so adamant on crashing into something, were all stagnant, parked, dull. Quite wonder-less, to be honest. A frown pulled at her lips.

"North?" she called again, more quietly, to the white-bearded man sitting behind his work desk in an ornate red leather chair.

North turned his head a fraction, as if just noticing her. "Tooth, what is the pleasure?"

"This girl's teeth…" she started, but the words grew heavy in her throat. "Is… is something wrong?"

"I am not sure, but I feel it in my belly."

"It's not Pitch… is it?" The fear in her voice was real.

"This soon? He would need―"

There was a deafening _crack_ and a chorus of Yetis roared. Bunnymund's voice echoed through the workshop, "Sorry mate! Big feet, ya hear?" North and Toothiana exchanged a look. She glance down at the cylinder of teeth, at Jill's smiling portrait, then out of the window at the Man in the Moon. She wished she understood.

Bunnymund ascended the stairs three at a time until he reached the landing with North's study, and made a bee-line for the fireplace. "My feet are bloody freezing! You think you could pass out warm mittie, mate?"

"Bunny! What brings you here?"

The rabbit switched feet, giving North a deadpan look. "What do you think? Three weeks in and he's already being bodgy."

"Who is?" Toothiana asked, the feathers on her forehead crinkling.

"Jack Frost! I'm mad as a cut snake, I am. _Guardian_ material my bloody arse. I told you he wasn't―"

"Bunny, bunny, slow down. What's Jack done?"

"What he _didn't_ do was give 'em in Sydney a snow day, mate." He rubbed his hands together and turned his tail toward the fire, wiggling it to defrost the tip. "Wherever he is, the reason better be London to a brick, mate, or I'm skinnin' him me-self―"

The sound of sand filled the workshop, swirling, waving, until a golden crest came through the skylight, and swirled down onto the landing, Sandman in tow. An arrow pointed over his head, a stricken look on his face.

"Sandy! Why the rush?" North asked, confusion crossing his graying brow. Sandy formed an arrow over his head and pointed to the moon, then the arrow turned into a manta ray, then the sun, then an eclipse and then―a snowflake. "Sandy! Sandy, slow down little friend. What do you try to say?"

Sandy shook his head furiously, and pointed again to the moon, this time with his finger. He mouthed a few words, his voice the sound of sand through an hourglass, and ground his teeth together in frustration.

But North understood.

He roses his eyes to the Man in the Moon, and then down to the seal of the Guardian. A shadow twisted, slowing coming into focus. A shadow with waves of hair and a round face, bulky and thick like a Yeti. Even though it was a shadow, a certain shimmering heat radiated from him.

"_Miser_," North scowled.

"What does the Man in the Moon want with ole Sunny?" Bunny asked.

Toothiana looked down at the golden tube of teeth, and held it tightly against her chest. She watched as, slowly, like a shifting tide, the shadow transformed into another.

It was a man in a top hat and a cane. A man with a mouth that split his face in half, stitch lips, and sunken eyes that ticked, ticked, ticked like a clock. Toothiana reeled back, pulling a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp, three of her baby tooths ducking behind her feathers to hide. Bunnymund's ears flattened down against his head, his eyes growing wide.

"Mate, that isn't―"

"_Chyort voz'mi!_" North cursed, then rebuked, "Forgive me, Man in Moon, but why is he _here_?"

The Man in the Moon forwent an answer, drifting silently behind a cloud, and left just enough light to relay one final shadow.

North grabbed his coat from the coat hanger and hurried down the stairs, the red-hat sea of elves parting like a slow-moving current. "Out of the way, you pesky little elves!"

Bunnymund gave Toothiana a pained look. "Oh bloody hell, it's been two weeks. _Two_. Hasn't anyone heard of a vacation? A nice barbie? Throwing a rage? Painting an oogie or two?"

"There's… one more thing." The tooth fairy extended the golden-plated tube of teeth to Bunnymund. "She turned eighteen three days ago."

"Impossible. Her picture's still on here."

"I know." She said it softly, almost fearfully. "I don't know why."

From down below, North bellowed, "Everyone to the sleigh!"

Bunnymund shook his head, "I'd rather―" but Toothiana yanked him by his boomerang strap into the air, and swirled down through the workshop toward the sleigh.

* * *

Jack gripped his staff tightly, sinking down into a fighting stance. Splays of ice bloomed around his feet in icy ferns. "Stay away from me," he warned.

The man cocked his head. He took a step on the ice, and then another. The pond buckled and cracked underneath him, as if he weighed more than he looked, jutting spirals of hairline fractures from his heel prints. "That is not in my design, dear Jack. Do not be afraid. I am merely a harvester, made as you are made, and as such I have a responsibility just as you do."

"You're no fable I've seen," Jack bit icily.

The man grinned, his teeth impeccably white. The closer he became, the whiter his eyes looked, until Jack could see that they weren't eyes at all, but watch faces, and inside each pupil was a steadily ticking clock. "That is because I am no fable, no fairytale, no metaphor for a chilled nose," he said the last bit mockingly, and rage coiled in Jack's belly.

"Care to say that again?"

"I…" the creature took another step, icing giving way, cracking, crumbling, into the dark frigid water, "…am…" Another step, closer, now Jack could smell him, the scent of freshly upturned earth, "… not a…"

And now the man, this strange thing, was in front of him, easily six feet tall, his skin so pale Jack could see blue veins rushing underneath his neck and prominent cheekbones. Jack was so frightened he couldn't move. His heart hammered in his chest, so loudly it could've broken a rib. While he was already cold, the air around this man was colder, but in a different sense. Jack's cold was a nice cold, a playful cold that swirled and danced. But this man… this man was as cold as spaded earth.

Jack's breath caught in his throat.

"… _fable_," he finished, and grabbed Jack by the throat. The clock hands in his eyes ticked, ticked, keeping time. _Ten twenty-three_, Jack thought absently. Just a few more minutes before… He felt the ice give. Suddenly, Jack was very, very afraid.

With a kick, the youth tried to wrench away, but the man held fast, his grip like steel.

"I have come to collect!" cried the man, his voice all-consuming, like Pitch's, but worse, because it rang inside of Jack's head too, a thousand times over, a chorus of crows. The man's hand tightened, and Jack choked, gasping. The night began to eat inward, the stars dulled, his lungs shuddered, the pain of the man's touch writhing his blood and bones, squeezing his soul through a straw. "You stole my due for tonight, but I shall return for her later. You, however, are mine toni―"

"LEAVE THE BLASTED ICE BOY ALONE!"

A gigantic ball of fire knocked Jack from the man's grip. Jack went flying into a snowbank, steaming, his eyebrows singed and hoodie smoking. He stumbled to his feet, grappling for his staff, flecks of smoldering shoulders icing over. The fireball had driven the creature into the water, and let steam roll across the pond like fog. Jack looked up onto the cliff top, and found a surprisingly welcome sight.

"Miser," he muttered.

The King of Summer jumped down, slamming into the frozen pond, leaving blacken footprints in his wake. The air sizzled off of him like heat off asphalt. The ice melted underneath his combat boots. The fable was tall as a yeti, as burly as North, a headful of wild flaming hair and eyebrows to match, a smattering of blotchy freckles on his cheeks, his eyes as golden as the heart of a fire. He cracked his knuckles, and jutted his chin up to Jack. "What up, Ice Boy."

"Aren't you supposed to be in Tampa?"

"Yeah and ain't you supposed to be in Sydney?"

Jack cursed. "The snow day…"

"Bingo. The kangaroo's got his panties in a wad. Silk or cotton, you think?"

"Cotton, definitely."

"Hell yeah." Miser nudged his head toward the crater-sized hole in the pond, and the bubbling water underneath. "What was that thing?"

Jack rubbed his throat, but that wasn't what pained him. It was his insides, squirming still, as if that―that _thing _hadn't just touched his skin, but his very soul, and wrung it like a wet towel. The feeling settled in his stomach like a stone, unshakable. "I don't know… but it was crazy. You think you got it?"

Miser tossed back his springy fro of hair and belted a hardy laugh. "Nothin' can stand my great balls of fi―"

A hand broke through the ice underneath Miser and grabbed his ankle, pulling him down below the ice with an ungodly force. Steam erupted like a volcano, gushing out like a tidal wave across the icy surface.

"Heat! I'm coming!" Jack shot out across the slippery pond, branches of ice following his every footstep. "Miser!" His voice cracked in desperation. He remembered falling under, the glimpse of the sky, the chill of the water, biting against his cheeks and lips, filling his nostrils, curling down into his lungs like poison. The memory tripped him, sent him to his knees, curling his insides as if snakes were inside instead of his soul. He bit back a scream and pressed his forehead against the cold of the pond, fighting to master himself again, but the memory replayed again and again, his sister's voice filling his ears, the taste of the water filling his mouth.

He couldn't get a breath of air as whatever that thing had put inside of him wanted to crawl out, tear through his flesh and bone like paper. No, he had to save Miser. He had to…

He cracked open his eyes, and gave a cry. The face of Miser floated beneath him, waterlogged, despondent. "NO!" He cried, grabbing his staff, and jammed it down through the ice. It cracked under his weight, but then Miser began to drift down, down, down into the darkness underneath the pond.

A chilled voice sang against his ear, whispery and cheerful, "_Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies…_"

Gritting his teeth, Jack jerked his staff out of the ground and swung it behind him, a glow of blue ice electrifying the air. But no one was there. "Show your face! Who're you working with? Pitch? Come out! I dare you! You'll pay for this!"

The voice laughed, hollow and high, as footsteps skipped across the ice. "_'Ashes, Ashes…'_"

Jack looked down. The monstrous man stood below him on the other side of the ice, in the cold water, grinning a grin that stretched his stitch lips across his entire face. He barely had time to think before the man's eyes glowed, and the ice cracked, and sank Jack Frost into the murky depths of the pond.

"_We all fall down._"


	5. Chapter 4

****A/N: Sorry for the month-long hiatus! Real Life has been _crazy_. Anyway, on with the heartbreak.

* * *

**Chapter Four  
**_Silence_

Safely in the sleepy town of Burgess, Jamie tossed and turned in his bed. His nightlamp threw stars and spaceships on the walls, but he'd already watch them rotate a trillion times over. He'd tried to count sheep―_one-hundred and forty-seven… one-hundred and forty-eight…_ He even tried to close his eyes and think of _nothing_, but nothing always swam away like scared fish, as hungry thoughts crawled through his brain, picking questions and ideas for the tasting.

Then, footsteps echoed down the hallway. Who'd be up? "Sophie?" he whispered, wondering why his parents didn't still keep her in a crib.

The footsteps froze.

He crawled to the edge of his bed and peeked around the lip of his door. It wasn't Sophie, but Jill in her winter frock, fur hood covering her face. She glanced back at him with a long-suffering look.

"_Jamie_," she hissed, "go back to bed!"

"Why're you up?" Crawling out of bed, he met her halfway in the hallway, growing excited as the realization dawned. "You're sneaking out!"

"Not for long," she defended, pushing a pair of white boots behind her back. The blades on the bottom glinted silver in the moonlight.

A grin spread across his face. "Can I come too?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

"You're going ice skating, I'm not stupid―just stay there, I'll get my skates!"

She tried to stop him, but he was already digging out his skates from his closet, and came back. "Jamie… it's the middle of the night, it's cold. I'll take you in the morni―"

"I've been out on the pond this late before," he defended, tip-toeing down the stairs to grab his coat from the coatrack by the door, and lacing up his snowboots.

She rolled her eyes, following. "Right, on your adventures with _Jack Frost_."

"You don't have to believe, you're not a grown-up," he said matter-of-factly, unlocking the front door. He zipped out, and she followed, flustered. They clomped down the front steps and up the roadside, slick with the evening's ice. It would probably be the last snowfall before spring. She couldn't wait―Burgess in winter was wonderful, but Burgess in the summer, with the sprinklers running and the community pools open and the cuties back from college in swim trunks… oh, _heaven_. If winter was a prude virgin, then summer was most definitely it's slutty half-sister.

"Who said I don't believe in _Jack Frost_?" she defended as they scaled the hill to the pond.

Her kid brother rolled his eyes. She couldn't wait until he became a teenager. All that sass would do him good in high school. "Because of the way you say his name. _Jack Frost_, like you're putting quotes around it."

"I'm not putting quotes," she made the quote symbol with her fingers, "around _Jack Frost_!"

"Then why are you defending it then, huh-huh? If you believed you wouldn't have to defend it. You'd just know."

Narrowing her eyes, she glared into the back of her little brother's head. They reached the top of the hill where the pond rested. Jamie stood frozen, gaping. "Jack…?"

The deity in question was on the pond, looking down below his feet, into the ice, entranced almost. Jamie saw his face pale, and eyes go wide, as skeletal hands, dripping with rot and sinew, stretched up through the ice like daggers, and wrapped their bony fingers around his ankles, and plunged him underneath.

"JACK!" Jamie dropped his ice skates and went tearing down the other side of the hill toward the crack in the pond.

Jill came up the hill after him. "Jamie! What are you―" The snow in the hill gave. She dropped her skates and went after her little brother, tumbling through the bank of snow in a flurry of white. She caught her footing at the bottom and grappled for the hood in Jamie's jacket. She caught it and pulled him back. He struggled against her, kicking. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Something dragged Jack under! I have to help him! I _have _to!"

She didn't see a boy named Jack, but she did see a hole in the ice, and a hooked staff lying not far away. Did someone fall through?

"Please!" Jamie begged, sobbing, "Please I have to help him!"

"Hold on―I'll go, I'm a better swimmer."

"But you can't see him! You can't see him!" Jamie thrashed against her, but she spun him around and stooped down so they were eye-level. He really thought Jack was real, she realized, and whoever was under the pond meant something to him.

And even if Jack wasn't real, someone had slipped through the ice. Air bubbles came up through the crack, all at once like a last gasp of breath.

"I believe in Jack Frost, Jamie," she said to her little brother, "I promise I do."

He nodded, and stopped jerking, tears flooding his eyes. She unzipped her snowjacket and tore off her boots. The ice was cold, and she sucked in a sharp breath when her feet touched it. _Now or never, Jilly_, she pepped herself, and took a running start for the crack, her feet miraculously sticking to the surface, almost sticky. She jumped and dived, the icy water instantly seizing her muscles and cramping her bones. She forced herself not to let out all of her breath, and opened her eyes. The moonlight that filtered through the ice was uncommonly bright as it drifted further into the murky depths, and she swam along it, searching down and down for somebody, as if the light itself painted a path.

Her lungs ached the further she went until―suddenly―a face drifted into the moonlight below her. A guy no older than herself, pale as a dead person, with hair iced over to look like snow. His eyes drifted between half open, his lips the deep blue of a drowned man.

She grabbed his ice-cold hand and kicked back up toward the surface, hoping it wasn't too late. She broke the surface, shivering. Jamie ran to the edge and helped her get the man up. Then she tried to get up herself, anchoring her elbows into the ice, but suddenly the sheet gave and she found herself underwater again.

"Jill!" Jamie shouted as she burst back through the water, gasping for air.

"Stay back," she snapped, because the ice was cracking all around her. No matter how she tried to get up, the sheet would give. "Just p-p-pull him further," she instructed, and Jamie did. "I-I-Is he b-b-breathing?"

He put a hand over Jack's mouth. "Yeah―his staff! I'll reach out with his staff and pull you out." He slipped over on the ice toward the staff, but she shook her head.

"T-T-T-To slip-p-p-pery," she warned. "Y-You'll b-be drag-g-ed in wi-with me." Her toes had already gone numb, her fingers close behind. She was shivering, her breath coming in short puffs. How long had DiCaprio lasted in the freezing waters after the Titanic sank? She wished she'd watched the movie more often, but she always ended up yelling at Kate Winslet to share the damn raft. She didn't want Jamie watching her die. "J-Jamie. G-G-Go get help."

He even thought it was a good idea. "Stay right there! I'll be right back!" He took off up the embankment again, and she watched him disappear over the hill, what looked like beyond the moon. She'd never noticed the moon so bright before, or so big. Maybe dying made everything bigger. Maybe dying was just flooding into the bigger, brighter cosmos where everything ran together like watercolors. She imagined heaven to be a lot like Picasso's _Starry Night_.

But she never thought she'd die like this.

"If y-y-you a-a-are J-Jack F-Frost," she told the unconscious man with a half-grin, "y-you're l-l-lookin' good f-f-for your a-a-age." And then she began to hum, because hearing her voice soothed her, and because she knew that when she stopped humming, everything else would stop too.

And there was a morbid comfort in that.

* * *

It was cold.

And it was dark.

And he was alone.

But then he wasn't, and there was a voice humming a tune he didn't recognize, but he liked the voice anyway.

_"Another life will do for now, I suppose,"_ crawled the nightmarish voice, all-consuming, clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

The humming grew fainter, dipping in and out, like a radio loosing signal.

_"But her life won't be nearly as satisfying as yours."_

Why couldn't he move? And why couldn't he stop the voice from fading. He could barely do anything, much less move and much less think. Everything was cold and foggy, and he couldn't remember the last time he felt cold before.

Not in three hundred years.

_"But I shan't be picky. Not at the moment. Because I suspect, in just desserts, her soul will summon you."_

And then, fading, fading, fading, until it was nothing at all, the melody drifted away, so tiredly, into the dark, deep depths of the pond.


End file.
